


opening doors that a kid shouldn’t walk through

by transzoemurphy



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Boys In Love, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Dissociation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmare, Nightmares, PTSD, Past Rape/Non-con, Sexual Abuse, Spencer Reid is a good boyfriend, Talking Through Feelings, complex PTSD, discussions of csa, mentions of torture, past CSA, the title is from guiltless by dodie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 02:16:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20845895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transzoemurphy/pseuds/transzoemurphy
Summary: Morgan wakes up from a nightmare but this time Spencer is here to comfort him





	opening doors that a kid shouldn’t walk through

**Author's Note:**

> i was thinking. about the lioness/antelope metaphor in 2x18. and it's like 2am and this happened.

Derek Morgan was no stranger to nightmares. 

He'd always had them, but only a couple times a year, and like any other kid, they were just the normal nightmares. 

But when the abuse started, the nightmares got worse. For a time, he refused to sleep, because he knew what greeted him was his brain desperately rehashing and trying to make sense of the trauma he'd endured. And he was just a kid. At fourteen, he should've been worrying about the area of a hexagon, not whether or not to tell someone about the perverse actions of the very man who was gonna get him out of this life and into a better one. 

So he dealt with it. For five years, he dealt with it.

And even though the abuse stopped, the nightmares never did. 

Sometimes it was just plain, unfiltered memory. Those were usually the worst, reliving some of his most terrible experiences as though it was happening again. But sometimes it had just a hint of surreality. Once, everyone and everything in his dream had been a two-dimensional metaphysical object (although having Reid's fingers interlocked with yours as he softly explained string theory and quantum physics to lull you to sleep would do that. The metaphysical objects, not the nightmares). Occasionally, he got to witness his worst memories as though he was an antelope and Carl was a lion just waiting to tear apart his prey. 

Tonight, he was having unfiltered memory as dreams. Or more specifically, he was, until Reid was shaking him awake, concerned. 

"Derek? Wake up," Reid said, a hand on his shoulder. 

Derek shoved his face into his pillow and mumbled something incoherent, wiping sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. 

"You were having a nightmare," Reid said, the fairy lights strung around the room reflecting in his eyes. 

Derek shrugged. "I guess."

"Do you need to talk about it?"

He shrugged again. "It's fine, really. It's just another nightmare. I'm fine."

"You were mumbling about how you 'didn't want it' and tossing and turning like crazy," Reid said. "That's not nothing."

The dream began to come back to him, and Derek knew what day he'd been dreaming of this time. "Go back to sleep, pretty boy, I'm not gonna bother you at 2am."

"You're not bothering me," Reid reassured, intertwining his fingers with Morgan's. 

Derek shrugged. "I'm fine."

Reid paused. "I'm not gonna make you talk about it if you don't want to, but anytime you have a better lie, I'm right here." Derek recognised a joke he'd made a while ago and smiled softly, running his thumb along the inside of Reid's wrist.

"Um," he began, shifting from his side to his back to stare up at the hyperrealistic glow stars on the ceiling. "So you know how Carl Buford was-?"

Reid nodded. 

"Yeah. He was, he was abusing me from when I was 12 to when I was 17. And I was always too scared to say no or tell anyone, so it just... continued. So that's five years' worth of nightmare fuel right there. The realistic ones are always the worst."

"I'm sorry," Reid mumbled. 

"It's not your fault, Ree," Morgan sighed. He'd started calling him "Ree" at some point, God knows when, and Garcia thought it was "absolutely adorable, sugarcakes" so he said it as a half-joke for a while, and then it became a habit. "I can still feel his hands. All the time. Some days are worse than others and today is definitely worse."

"I'm here for you, Derek," Reid said. "Whatever you need, really."

Derek took several breaths, calming himself down and trying to breathe. "I was so young. I was too young. I was terrified to say anything about it, but I shouldn't have had to, because what kind of sick freak-?" He screwed his eyes shut and balled his free hand into a fist, jagged nails digging into his palm. "What kind of sick freak preys on little boys?"

"I'm sorry that happened to you, Derek. You were just a kid."

"I was just a boy," Derek said. "I was just a boy, and he knew that, and he took advantage of that.”

Spencer stayed quiet, taking one of Derek’s hands in his own, and in a few moments, Derek spoke again.

“I was twelve the first time,” he said, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment. “I was twelve, and he let me come over to his cabin in the woods, and he gave me some wine, and I felt so grown up. I felt like an adult. Except then he wanted to go swimming, and afterwards he dried me off with his towel, and then he changed in the same room as me ‘in case I needed help,’ and I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what to do. I was so scared. It was terrifying, and now I have to relive that moment whenever I have certain types of wine, or when I go swimming, or when I shower at the gym. And, shit, Spencer, if I hadn’t signed my name on millions of papers saying I would always uphold the law and whatever, I’d have beat him with my own two fists the second I saw him with Damian. I was fucking terrified for him.”

“If he wasn’t dead, I’d help you beat him, if you wanted,” Spencer said quietly. 

Derek didn’t laugh, but he exhaled out of his nose a little bit. “Thanks, Ree.”

A long, pregnant pause, then: “In my dream, I was fourteen,” he said.

Reid stayed quiet, knowing that oftentimes, Morgan needed time to get his thoughts together.

“It was, um, the fourth of July weekend. He invited me up for the third, because he wanted me to be with my family on the fourth, but he still wanted to see me. And I tried to lose myself in his Pac-Man arcade game, but he took me to his room and—” Derek’s voice broke. “I’ve had this place in my mind for years where I went when he was abusing me, this beautiful field with a pond and trees in the distance, and after I left Chicago I thought I’d never need it again, but when they tortured me, I went back there, and afterwards — I mean, I was just _tortured_. And what I was thinking about was the abuse. I never thought I’d have to go back to that place again. And the fact that I couldn’t just,” his voice broke again, “_man up_ and deal with it, I don’t know, it makes me feel like I’m not… strong enough.”

“Derek,” Spencer whispered. “Dissociation is an incredibly common way of dealing with abuse, especially repeated childhood abuse. It’s also exceptionally common in those with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You have nothing to be ashamed of, even though I know it feels like you do.”

Derek sighed. “Logically, I know, but… it’s hard to remember that.”

“Then I’ll remind you,” Spencer said. “Whenever you need to be reminded. Hell, even if I’m halfway across the globe.”

“Thank you,” Derek mumbled. 

“Of course,” Spencer responded, curling up into him.

“I should go back to sleep,” Derek said.

“Do you feel ready to?”

Derek nodded slowly. “I’m sorry for waking you.”

“It’s okay, Derek. It’ll always be okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> derek morgan deserves better :(((
> 
> also i wrote this entire thing in the font “times new bastard” and proofread it in comic sans, yeehaw.
> 
> follow me on tumblr @trans-zoe-murphy


End file.
